RECYCLING PLAN GAINS SUPPORT

Mayor Art Canon's 4-year-old dream of providing residents with a convenient means of separating newspapers from trash for recycling may become a reality.

The City Commission gave support last week to a plan for a recycling pickup station adjacent to the public library off South Federal Highway.

"I think it's worth a try for the few thousand it will cost us," said Vice Mayor Arthur J. "Sonny" Rosenberg.

The estimated cost of the recycling project was $11,000, city officials said. But Canon said the city could easily recoup the investment.

City trucks would make fewer 35-mile round trips to the county landfill in Davie, and the city's cost for dumping -- $22 a ton -- would be reduced.

But most important, Canon said, the landfill would last longer because of the reduced volume.

Although county and city officials said they didn't know what proportion of the trash dumped in the landfill consists of newspapers, they said that not dumping them would save space and money.

The plan developed by city officials and the Durbin Paper Stock Co., a Miami- based firm that buys discarded newspapers and aluminium cans, calls for a collection facility near the library that would be open seven hours a day, Tuesday through Saturday.